


WPaRG Intermission: Hypocrites

by chelonianmobile, MultiFanGirlWickedPony, Writearoundchic



Series: WPaRG [28]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Rango (2011)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26048164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chelonianmobile/pseuds/chelonianmobile, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MultiFanGirlWickedPony/pseuds/MultiFanGirlWickedPony, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writearoundchic/pseuds/Writearoundchic
Summary: Lord Gorgon's betrayers converse.
Series: WPaRG [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1665667
Kudos: 4





	WPaRG Intermission: Hypocrites

Through the lens of a kaleidoscope, a scene can be viewed almost clearly. There’s no sound or smell and the glass is gray like smoke in a bottle, but this is enough - it has to be - for rounds about of the image to come through.

“You know, they say tragedy was the most important part of Greek theater. I read up on all that in college.”

The Calisota County courthouse is a big, impressive-looking building, topped with a lot of marble and granite to make it look more imposing. It was a church once and serving as testament to that are the gargoyles and enormous, unringing bell. Inside there are still painted ceilings, and columns to hold them up, though most of the friezes and old statues are gone, replaced by more recently deceased men.

_A young boy sits in one seat out of many in a beyond-packed theater, squinting in the dark and at the stage lights, scooting to the edge of his chair. A woman sits to one side of him, and a man on the other. He resembles the latter more than the former. Another woman sits behind, wearing a pouty, irritated expression. Her hair is gray and her eyes are milky - and green. All their eyes are green._

The sensical thing to do is to stay indoors with the mismatched decor that borders on heretical, where the smell of paper has overtaken the incense - and whatever else boils into the smell of churches, from a long, long time ago - but the Green-Eyed Athena can feel the walls closing in around him like a fist.

“Is that right?” The Perseus of this story leans on the ledge’s metal railing, looking out at the steadily falling late spring rain. It’s gentle now, but getting heavy as more gray clouds roll in from overhead. He hadn’t looked surprised at first, when Athena came through the little “do not enter” door and stood on the firescape alongside him. He does look surprised now, and has for while, the expression etched into his features as if by a carving tool. Maybe it has something to do with the younger man not hitting him.

_The boy from before in better lighting; he reads while lying on his stomach, elbows propping him up while he stretches out across the floor. His head turns suddenly and he looks over - squinting again - at something-someone offscreen. There’s the faintest outline of a pregnant woman with graying brown hair. Her face isn’t completely visible, but she must say something because the child nods, stands and dusts himself off, climbing into one of the more-decorative-than-anything pieces of furniture stocking the living room._

It almost looks like he wishes the one in the Athena role would strike him, it doesn’t look like he’d fight back…

The not-goddess reasons that it wouldn’t do much good if he did throw his attempt at a punch, even if it landed, which seems unlikely. He’s never been well-versed in anything but language, a far cry from the original holder of his borrowed name. Not that he knows he’s borrowed it at all, neither man does. They’re too preoccupied with an entirely different story.

_A hospital corridor. The milky-eyed woman and the man from the theater sit in hard plastic chairs while - again - the boy takes up the chair between two places, lying there with his head on one lap and feet in another. A pair of newer-looking eyeglasses slide down the bridge of his nose. His chest rises and falls like a steady curtain and his jaw is slack and drooling as the child lies there, fast asleep._

“Well, we don’t know the Greeks for their comedies, do we?”

“I wouldn’t say that…” The actor of Perseus reaches into his pocket and fishes around for something, goggle eyes darting back and forth across the ground, but never rising to meet the new Athena’s cold green gaze. “There’s Lysistrata, isn’t there?”

_The other woman from before - the one with the gray streaks in her brown hair - lays in a hospital bed, smiling as her son approaches. She holds a squirming blue bundle in her arms now and turns it out at him. Her lips form a word that starts with the letter B._

“Lysistrata and…?” He cocks an eyebrow, though the slayer of no one - not even monsters - isn’t looking to see it. “What else?”

“There isn’t much, is there?” Perseus chuckles softly, rubbing the back of his shaven head. “Not that I would know anyway, never got into any college myself… couldn’t afford it, fancy or otherwise.”

_The child comes bounding down the stairs, waving a sheet of paper in his hands - childish scribble. He finds his mother in the kitchen… with the baby on her hip, she barely gives him a second glance._

“There isn’t much else,” says the Green-Eyed Athena, “I mean, I’m probably biased, but I really can’t think of anything. Tragedies on the other hand… everyone knows a few of them, right?”

Another chuckle from the man who has not _killed_ a gorgon. “I guess so. I remember Oedipus - never read the thing, but I’ve got a pretty good idea - that counts, right?”

_Another crowd-packed in a theater, in the dark, and the same family from before sits near the front again, the boy on the edge of another seat. There’s one extra now and as the lights dim, the baby’s face crumples. People’s heads turn, shooting them dirty looks and his mother stands first, carrying the younger and pulling the elder out by his arm. He goes willingly, but doesn’t look happy about it._

“It counts, though I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you remember that one for the wrong reasons? Everyone does.”

“The mother thing? I don’t know if I’d call that a wrong reason exactly… I know I’m definitely going to make sure I don’t accidentally…” He shivers as if at the thought of it and smiles weakly. “Can you remember that sort of thing for the wrong reason? I always thought art… well, if someone remembers it at all-”

_A middle-aged man and an old woman sit in the hard plastic chairs of a hospital corridor, along with a ten-year-old boy. A much younger child - little more than a toddler - walks up and down the hall, jumping from tile to tile. The older boy’s mouth opens, but his father catches his eye and shakes his head. The message is clear: “leave him be”. So he does, remaining perfectly still._

“It doesn’t work that way with art like this.”

The nobody in the part of Perseus looks surprised (more now than he did already). “Oh?”

_A pink bundle this time. Next year they’ll all be sitting in the same place with a little girl, waiting for two more of the blue ones. Then they are. He’s almost twelve now and old enough to look after all of them - for short periods of time anyway._

“Greek tragedies aren’t… it’s never just about the story with them. There’s always a moral and it’s not always… or _usually_ what we’d consider a ‘correct’ moral, but it’s… there. That’s the whole point! To teach us something! To show us what happens to those who don’t learn… to…” Athena leans forward, shoulders sagging to a slump. “If you miss that, then you’ve missed the whole story… that’s what I think.”

Perseus is quiet for a moment, eventually drawing out from his pocket what he’s been rifling for - a lighter, but nothing to smoke. He flicks the ignition, letting the fire reflect in his eyes and Athena’s (and his glasses as well). For a moment they stand there, staring hungrily at the brightness of it as the rainwater falls around them, pooling and dashing on the sidewalk - gray as Athena’s eyes usually are in the stories that people want to read.

_His parents come home to find him reading and the house in shambles all around him, the floor heaped with children's toys as his brothers and sister chase each other from room to room. Their brows furrow and his mother’s mouth opens - a ten-page lecture written on the back of her teeth._

“Is that why you’re here?” he asks finally. “To teach me a lesson?”

Green-Eyed Athena just shakes his head, hands held up in a gesture of peace. “I’m not going to pick a fight with you. I’m pretty sure that would cause a lot more problems than it would fix, and anyway… I don’t think it’s my place.”

 _The boy holds up a photograph of an opera house - the inside part, with everyone in costume and on the stage._ I want, _his lips form the words._

 _His father finds the blueprints of the structure and prints them off online, laying them out on the table in front of him._ This is how. _The child looks crestfallen at first, then bored as the lecture continues; but he doesn’t stop listening to it._

“To fight me?”

“To judge you.” Athena polishes his glasses with the corner of his sleeve. “What happened to Huan… was my fault as much as it was yours.”

_He’s reading again, from a book as thick as his thumb is long, while his brother - one of them - pokes his head up from behind the couch, flicking his ear and pulling his hair. His mouth opens and shuts a few times and more than once he looks over at the door, saying something to someone down the hall. The younger boy stamps a hand across the pages and the older slams the cover shut. His face crumples and the child tears from the room. Minutes later the door bursts open, revealing their mother and the same wayward sibling, holding ice to a bruised hand._

“Don’t say that.”

“Why not?” he asks, almost flippantly. “It’s true. You have to know it’s true.”

_He’s in highschool now and his next youngest brother is just entering middle. He comes home with broken glasses, back bowed under the weight of his bookbag. His parents asks a few times if something’s wrong but he shrugs them off and they let him, being too busy to force the matter. His youngest siblings tease him for not having any friends._

“If I hadn’t… If I had said something, well… I mean, they might not‘ve listened to me, if I’m bein’ honest with myself here… but I coulda _tried_.” The would-be monster fighter looks pleadingly at the nothing goddess (who doesn’t even have gray eyes). “Do you wanna know why I-”

“You did it - or didn’t do it, I guess - because you knew someone would believe him. Aunt Lin or our parents or Grandma… or whoever, and then… they’d stop hurting you - and everyone else,” he adds quickly, tagging it onto the end. “I know about that too, but-”

_College; he attends some place in the city, not all that far away from his home. He can make the drive… if his family needs him. He sits alone in the dining room and lecture halls. Someone comes up to him once with a sheet of difficult-looking math homework; he points at his own book, full of different numbers. There’s a moment of confusion before the stranger’s eyes light on another young man with glasses and hurries off, lips shaping a name that looks Japanese._

“I was selfish. I put my guilt over my job as an officer. I’m-”

“You think that’s bad?” Athena can’t quite keep himself from laughing. “If I hadn’t been such a petty idiot… none of this would have happened. They would still be out there, maybe they’d be hurting someone else. And… I’d be alright with that. I’d be…” His hand drifts a little too close to the flame dancing on the lighter. “I’m glad this happened,” he whispers hoarsely, arm sweeping towards the door. “I’m glad that someone found out and they’re going to be punished for this. I’m happy that they can’t hurt anyone else, but… I’d be happier if it was all still going on so long as he never had to be a part of it. That’s awful, right? That makes me some kind of horrible person.”

_Snow falls in the mountains and the air gets colder, and a young man returns from school to his childhood home. His mother kisses his cheek and his father shakes his hand. His grandmother nods curtly which isn’t really unexpected, she’s never been one for affection, but she talks to his second brother all through dinner and for most of the rest of the night._

“No! No, I don’t think so… I think a lot of people think that way and just won’t admit it to themselves, so really it just makes you an honest guy who loves his brother.” He lets out a ragged breath of his own. “I’m the one who set him up, aren’t I? B-because I was too much of a coward to tell the truth before… because I didn’t think the chief‘d believe me, and she would have… she would have… I know that now, but… but then I…”

“Again, I don’t think I’m in a place to judge you for any of that. It was half my fault… at least for the only part I care about.” He speaks with a tone of strong self-loathing, like he knows that the not-caring is a bad thing too. “I’m trying to be less of a… well… asshole. Maybe then he’ll want to talk to me.”

_His little brother has the friends he didn’t at his age, but not the kind he’d ever have wanted to have. Older kids, though still young teenagers, with dark skin and hair and a lot of glitter on their clothing._

“Does he… y’know…” the antihero hesitates for a second or two, maybe more, “… hate me?”

Pallas’ answer is blunt and honest. “Yes.”

_He catches all three of them once, his brother sneaking in through an open window while his little co-conspirators watch from the ground below. His movements are sluggish, eyes bleary and pupils huge. They get bigger when his older sibling shouts something and shakes him._

“Do you?”

That one takes longer. He pulls his arm away from the lighter again, running his fingers through his hair. “I wish I could,” he says finally. “I want to. I thought I might, for a while after I found out…”

_His parents laugh it off when he tells them._

“That ain’t really an answer.”

“No,” Athena seems to consider this. “I don’t hate you. I don’t like you or forgive you, but I don’t… I don’t hate you anymore. Maybe you’re a coward, but then that’s your Hamartia.”

_There are more nights like that one, but not many. Mostly mornings when his brother is red-eyed at the table or doesn’t get up till well into the afternoon. He starts checking in on him - periodically - more than once in the night; his little brother starts locking the door._

“My what?”

“Hamartia, your tragic flaw. All heroes have them in the best Greek plays.”

 _The young man drags his brother into the living room and shoves him down in front of the TV. One of his friends’ faces appears on the screen. Above the word_ Missing _and under his name. The young man points to the picture and then at the boy on the couch._

“Soooo… tragedies. That’s what you mean, it’s a thing with tragedies.”

“Exactly.”

_He sees that friend again on another vacation. Not at a club or even at his house, but they run into each other at the grocery store. His mouth forms a greeting, but his brother’s classmate doesn’t seem to recognize him._

“Damn, what kind of class was this?”

“It was an elective my junior year, the only one I ever really enjoyed taking.”

 _He mouths_ Julien Andriana _to his family when he gets home. His mother smiles tightly and his father winces. The youngest of his younger siblings appear oblivious, the oldest of the four of them leaves the room._

“The only elective, or…?”

Athena, the not-so-wise, is quiet for a while and the only thing that can be heard at all is the rain as it comes down heavier and heavier in a molten glass sheet. This goes on for a mile’s worth of sound. “You aren’t going to smoke, right?” he says, eyeing the lighter still held in the son of anyone but Zeus’ hand.

_His brother locks himself up in their mother’s old dance studio, building giant things made of metal and clay. He’s only mediocre, but getting better. This is what he does without stopping, for hours and hours, everyday. He doesn’t go out anymore._

“Uh, no.” Goggle-eyed blinking; the thing is pocketed and the dark returns and they have to look at each other. “Is it a health thing? Asthma, or…?”

“The suit’s expensive. I’d rather not have it stinking of cigarettes.”

 _He walks like an outsider through his own graduation party, dodging family friends along with actual family and nearly bumping into someone - a woman with thick, defined eyebrows and long dark hair, and a beauty mark beneath her right eye._ Sorry, _a closeup of his lips around the word._

“Right…” Perseus is the first to break eye contact, staring at the wall - or the rain beyond the overhang that shelters them - or the overhang itself - or the floor. “How’s your brother?”

“How do you t-” Athena bites his tongue, but his eyes burn like a bright green fire - Greek fire - brighter than the thimble’s worth of candlelight that the monster spotter’s put away. “Not well. If anyone would know I think you would, right?”

 _The two of them go out to dinner and he looks at her from across the table with platinum bands in his eyes - shining brighter than a polished diamond would. She lets him kiss her - on the hand - at the end of the night. And that smile… The shape of_ sometime _and_ again _on his lips. She nods twice._

That makes Perseus flinch. “You, uh… You’ve got a point there.” It’s quiet again for a long, long time.

“My family blames both of us, you know.” Athena takes a deep breath and winces as if tasting something bitter in the air. “Well, I guess you wouldn’t. With Huan… it’s not that I’m particularly happy about it, but… we’ve never gotten along.”

 _He takes his spot at the family dining table with his siblings and parents - and the woman with the mole below her eye, wearing a cash-green dress. His mother smiles until somebody’s mouth shapes the word_ politics _._

“And with everyone else?”

“It’s… not exactly unexpected, and it’s understandable… but…”

_His brother shouts back and forth with his girlfriend, their faces heating into a mix of purple and violent red. She looks ready to pitch her drink at him as her better half takes her elbow and leads her away, glaring at his family behind her back._

The man in Perseus’ spot doesn’t really want to know, this seems like the kind of story that doesn’t stop going once it’s started, but… it also looks like Athena needs to tell it. Badly. “But…?”

“You know about our family, right? I mean, obviously you do, or we wouldn’t be here…”

 _They’ve been together four years when he gets down on one knee, and asks the dark haired woman in her deep green dress if she’ll stay with him_ forever.

 _She seems to consider it and then smiles, placing her hand over his._ Yes.

“The Beifongs.” There’s an air of odd finality in his words. “Toph Beifong.”

“Suyin Beifong,” Athena says. “Her too. She was Grandma’s heir because Aunt Lin refused to be.”

_He and the woman at the dining table. His family doesn’t look quite so happy now. His mother glares hard at the ring on her soon-to-be daughter-in-law’s hand. His next youngest brother looks straight into her eyes, scowling the whole time._

“That sounds like the chief.” Perseus smiles wryly. “She doesn’t talk about you guys much.”

“She and my mother… had a falling out. Something happened when she was like twelve or something and Aunt Lin was just starting out as a cop. That’s where all her scars come from… and I don’t think she ever forgave Mom for that.”

_His fiance turns the newspaper towards him one morning, irritation palpable as she taps one part of the tenth page color-spread and removes her finger from his brother’s face. He’s with a number of others, holding up poster-board signs._

“Oh… Oh, I’m sor-”

“Don’t.” Athena holds up one hand. “I just… don’t. Please.”

_He makes the first phone call not an hour after seeing the picture in the news. It goes unanswered. There are two pictures next week, four the one following that. He gets the message loud and clear._

“… okay.”

“There’s a pretty big age difference between my brother and me, and an even bigger difference between me and… everyone else.”

_He stays over during the summer and leaves by noon the next day. He and his brother scream back and forth at each other from across the table or the room - or through the walls or down the hallway - the entire time between._

“How big?”

“Seven years with him, ten years with my sister, eleven with the twins. I was used to being an only child by the time I wasn’t anymore. Old enough to set an example, and to babysit. I guess I kind of… resented him? Them?”

_The first time someone shouts into a megaphone at one of his fiancée’s rallies, he tries to overlook it, to not listen… to just ignore. Then he sees his brother there._

“For being younger?”

“Sort of. I just… I was the oldest. I was the one they named after my father and the one that they wanted to take over as… ‘patriarch’, I guess but it sounds so old fashioned. There were certain things people expected of me that my siblings didn’t have to understand.”

_Phone calls. So, so many… many phone calls. On the wall hangs a calendar with one date circled and “press conference” written in red._

“What kind of things?” Perseus drawls. “I ain’t really up to date on this… blueblood stuff.”

Athena laughs. “I’m hardly a blueblood, but I see your point. You know, my father’s an architect? And my mother’s a politician, so that meant I had to be an architect or a politician too… That was my choice, the only one I had. My brother’s never understood that. I don’t think my parents do either. I don’t think they realize I had to make it, despite the fact that they kind of strong-armed me.”

_From across a sea of people, he sees him and sees red. The man in glasses watches with some satisfaction as a few blue-coated police officers tackle his brother to the ground. The crowd of protestors scatters, glaring and spitting in his and his direction and casting dirty looks. It’s quiet after that._

“What did you want?”

“Does it matter?”

_For two weeks there are still protests at their conferences and rallies, just thinner ones. He sees the stories about the police department on the news; his aunt calls him about it, but he never quite connects the dots._

“I think so…”

The two of them stand and stare at each other, not saying anything for a long time. Finally Athena pries his mouth open and sighs. “I think I wanted to be an actor, then, when I realized that was stupid, a playwright, but the closest I ever got was writing and giving speeches and I was never good at that.”

_Dinner at his parents’ house, with his fiancée. His brother keeps his mouth shut for most of the evening. The man with glasses and the woman seated next to him sneer his way from time to time, but there isn’t much fun in it. He doesn’t glare back or rise to their baiting, just hides behind the curtain of his black hair. Someone’s mouth opens near dessert and the oldest of the younger siblings unwinds completely, bursting into tears._

“Theater, huh? What happened?”

“I grew up. I realized that I had an example to set and… I didn’t want to make my family look bad. I wanted them to be proud of me. I guess that must sound funny to you, given the way things worked out, but I swear-”

_He watches in third-person horror as his brother breaks down in his chair, face buried in his arms, hair trailing across the plate. Their father stands up and wordlessly goes over to him, draping one arm around his heaving shoulders and pulling that brother to his feet. They leave the room and the eldest stares shell-shocked at the door while the others glare at him. His mother tells him to check his phone._

“Relax, I believe you.”

“Right.” The fool’s goddess breathes in, slightly ragged and trying hard to even out. “Right. I… Someone had to be the responsible one. The one who would look after the house and grandma and our parents in their old age. Someone dependable. There was only me for a long time and then when the others came along…”

_There are words written in white in those blue bubbles on the screen. There are letters and spaces and it should all make sense… but it doesn’t. He gapes. He stares. The woman with the beauty mark reads over his shoulder and doesn’t look half as upset as everyone else does._

“You were jealous?”

“I was not…” Athena bites his tongue. Hard. “Maybe a little. Maybe a lot. It’s just… they had options. They were allowed to go beyond the family name and our parents… our parents always seemed so happy that their children were individuals,” he spits the last word out sarcastically, making air quotes with his hands. “Three individuals… and me, who did everything he was supposed to do and then some - everything that everyone told me about staying out of trouble and keeping my head down. I was getting my masters degree while Huan was running around drunk and spray painting brick walls in empty alleys!”

 _The man with glasses and his fiancée lean in close together. There’s still no sound, but it’s clear they’re whispering. His lips read:_ brother _and_ fault _and_ fix it _._ _Hers begin to form_ deserved _. Then there is sound._ Get out. _He doesn’t say it very loudly, but there’s a thunder to his words._

Perseus winces at that.

“And they called me a stick in the mud. They laughed at me for it, or made fun of what I did because it was boring and… I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

 _He goes back inside to find most of his family - all but one - in the living room, glaring right at him._ Do you… _He stumbles over the threshold along with his words._ Do you want me to… leave?

“You don’t need to stop.”

“I met Kuvira Acharya through my mother. That was another thing my parents wanted… I think - for me to settle down with a nice girl. She was… she worked for my mother at one point, they knew each other. She used to teach dance classes and Kuvira…” He can’t stop himself from smiling faintly - sadly. “She’s a wonderful dancer. I fell hard, even if… Even if my parents encouraged it. Then she… changed.”

 _His mother steps forward and points upstairs._ Talk to him. _He takes each step slowly, deliberately, with a death march playing in his head the whole time._

“You mean the-”

“My brother likes to say that she’s a Nazi. That’s not… really it. She’s… conservative. She’s very, very conservative, but… she liked me. She didn’t think I was boring and it was easier to just agree with the things she said so we didn’t have to argue. It’s always been easier to just… do what I’m told.”

Huan? Can we talk? _He knocks on the door. Holding a copy of an old children’s book in one hand. There’s no answer from the other man behind the door, so he sinks down beside it and decides not to leave. Not even when he hears the crying._

Perseus flicks the lighter on again, fingertip hovering over a frayed edge of the shuddering flame. “I can understand that.”

“Yeah, well… you would, wouldn’t you? When my parents realized she was… well, they more or less changed their minds about us. Dad was too polite to say anything, but Mom did and so did my grandmother.” As Athena says this, the smallest smirk lights cruelly on his face. “You remember her?”

 _His sister scowls at him and drops an envelope into his lap._ It’s from your girlfriend, asshole. _He tears it open. There’s a platinum band inside._

The half-bad gorgon slayer outright flinches. “Yeah… I remember.”

“Thought so. You know, she’s always liked the rest of them better than me? Everyone has… everyone does. Kuvira didn’t. I know that’s not an excuse, but it’s a reason.”

 _The man with glasses leans on the porch railing, fiddling with the engagement ring in the late dusk light._ What are you doing? _His brother’s voice from behind him._

Nothing, _he says, letting go like he’s been burned._

“A reason,” Perseus echos. “Yeah, we’ve all got those. Not like you knew it was gonna happen anyway.”

“No,” Athena says quietly. “I didn’t. Does it really make such a big difference in the end?”

 _The two of them stand there for a while, not speaking, not looking at each other either, just staring out at the great nothing of the early night sky._ Did you love her? _his brother asks._

I don’t know how not to, _he says back._

“I think so.”

“Yeah?” The foolish not-god of wisdom lets out a long, loud, bitter noise that sounds almost like braying instead of a laugh. “No one else seems to.”

Do you… _He hesitates._ Do you h… For what happened, do you-

 _The younger man looks straight at him, the porchlights illuminating the scar above his left eye, splitting the skin. He looks away quickly, but that one moment is all either of them want or need._ You want to know if I blame you? _Silence._ Kind of… yeah. It’s… I’m trying not to… but it’s hard.

 _The older man smiles tightly, even though his brother isn’t looking._ I understand.

“I-”

“Save it.” Athena puts one hand out over the railing, past the ledge of overhang, sleeve and all, even as the rain keeps pouring. “Speaking of tragedies… it’s strange that Medusa isn’t one. My brother always hated that story…”

Do you… hate me?

 _The answer is instantaneous:_ No.


End file.
